Star Trek Onlines new expansion, Legacy of Romulus, is now available! In this expansion, players gain the ability to make Romulan characters and immerse themselves in new, story-driven missions written from the Romulan Republics point-of-view. Romulans have access to a full range of new Warbird ships, as well as new content throughout their career.

In addition, players can now create Klingon characters starting at level 1. All players also gain access to the new Nimbus III adventure zone, the new Nukara Strike Force endgame Reputation system, an improved trait system, and new user interface options.

The epic sci-fi MMO's introduction of the Romulans has been in the making for quite awhile, and it looks like the time's finally come. Due to launch next Tuesday, the next Star Trek Online expansion, Legacy of Romulus, is already available for current STO players to preload. Here are some screenshots of what the Legacy has in store for intrepid starship captains.

Meanwhile, posted over at the STO blog is an in-depth look at the planet of Nimbus. Once an intended symbol of peace, the planet's inhospitable atmosphere instead turned the place into a crime hotspot. What does that mean for you? Why, a personality-stuffed new questing zone, of course! It's accessible any time after level 19 (and high-level players will have their level automatically adjusted to the max of 26 upon their arrival). An episode series will take you on a sightseeing tour of Nimbus' most legendary must-visit destinations, including the poverty-stricken Paradise City and a destroyed ship-turned-crime-stronghold.

Meanwhile, daily missions rewarding Dilithium Ore can be completed, and—as one is surely wont to do when visiting a third-world planet—there's also the daily dance mission to participate in. The things one must do to survive, y'know?

Nimbus becomes available for all factions to play upon Legacy of Romulus' launch on May 21. Beam yourself up to the STO site for the full details on the expansion's offerings.

R-R-Romulans have r-r-ridges. Perfect World Entertainment's is gearing up to launch the most ambitious Star Trek Online expansion to date in May, giving players tired of making excuses for their Vulcan characters to roleplay space sex a more passionate alternative with Legacy of Romulus. And hey look — Tasha Yar is back!

Or at least Denise Crosby has signed on, reprising her role as Empress Sela, created after her more Federation-minded character was killed off, making Mr. Roboto sad. Crosby will voice Yar's half-Romulan daughter in the expansion, which will see players involved in an uprising against the Tal Shiar regime.

Me? I'm just keen to pilot a Warbird. Never was much of a Romulan fan, but I really dig their rides.

Star Trek Online is about to boldly go into its third year since engaging back in early 2010, and from January 31 through February 14, players can take part in a celebratory episode called "Temporal Ambassador" where they'll cross paths with the late Enterprise Chief Tactical Officer Tasha Yar, played in-game as she was in The Next Generation series by Denise Crosby.

Yes, Lieutenant Yar was cruelly offed at the end of the first season by the mean tar monster Armus in "Skin of Evil," but we're guessing her appearance has something to do with "Starfleet transponder codes dating back to the mid-24th century" emanating from a temporal anomaly created by the highly territorial Tholians.

Stick around, and you can also expect to be partying with no less than the omnipotent space troll Q, who'll be hosting a special in-game event that will bag you a special Federation Ambassador Class or Klingon Kamarag Class ship.

Crosby's appearance in Star Trek Online will follow other appearances by veterans of the series, including Leonard Nimoy (Spock from the original series), Chase Masterson (Leeta from Deep Space 9), and Zachary Quinto (Spock from J.J. Abrams' Star Trek film) who have lent their characters' voice and appearance within Perfect World's space-voyaging MMO. Still no sign of Wesley, but considering the ensign earned his own death parody video, we're probably better off not letting him on our bridge.

Star Trek Online saw a fair bump in player count since going free-to-play in January of last year. Earlier this week, Executive Producer Dan Stahl announced that more than 2 million captains are continuing to ply the galaxy's warp-ways after the transition. But that's just a fraction of the 4 billion Tribbles stowing away on everyone's ships, as shown in the milestone infographic below.

Steam powered captains, we have the pack for you! This bundle contains all you need to start battling the Klingon Empire, including two Starfleet Steamrunner starships -- a Tier 1 ship for the start of your career, and a Tier 5 ship for when you reach Vice Admiral.

Additionally, Star Trek Online has just launched their latest expansion, Season 7: New Romulus with a new sector block, missions, events, and social experiences!

The next chapter of Star Trek Online's ongoing voyages is set to engage next Tuesday. Players will be able to explore New Romulus, the largest ground exploration zone in the game to date, as they aid the Romulans in building a new home. Check out the trailer above, and read on for more intel.

New Romulus is the centerpiece of the new content, representing STO's largest continuous planetary zone so far. Max level Federation and Klingon officers will gain access to new daily quests, a new reputation progression system that unlocks unique ground and space combat perks, and the ability to establish an embassy for your fleet that will level up and unlock now rewards as you complete cooperative objectives.

Season 7 will also launch with new fleet actions and special task forces (STO's end-game instanced content.) Notably, you will be able to face off against the Borg Queen in "Into the Hive." We can only hope that this ends with a "snap robotic spinal cord" objective.

Last but not least, players will be able to purchase the Vesta Class Federation starship from the Destiny novels. I'm not knowledgeable enough on the Star Trek expanded universe to know why that's significant, but it looks slick and a lot of people seem pretty psyched.

Barring any sort of catastrophic and somewhat hilarious disasters (looking at you, Wesley), you should be able to boldly go into Season 7 beginning next Tuesday, November 13th.

"MMOs are designed to grow over time and get better with every major release," he continued. "It might be better if sites like Metacritic could find a way to rate MMOs by releases instead of just the initial day one."

Stahl said "plenty of MMOs" enacted "huge strides" since launching with detracting or beneficial effects. Since launching in February 2010 to mediocre reviews, Star Trek Online, for example, retooled its ground combat, added a "duty officer" system of modular ship boosts, and empowered players with homebrewed mission content via its Foundry creation kit.

By contrast, Sony Online's Star Wars Galaxies earned initial critical acclaim when it released in June 2003, but subsequent major updates—including the infamously divisive New Game Enhancement—soured its reception among the community for apparently ruining an otherwise enjoyable sandbox experience.

We wouldn't necessarily disagree—reviewing MMOs is a fundamental challenge. Our original EVE Online review scored the game at 55, and we've continued to cover the game's growth after launch. Our reviews-in-progress are an attempt to give timely impressions when they're arguably most valuable—immediately following release—while allowing us to stamp a verdict when we're ready.

When 3D MMORPGs were still babies, player-built housing was one of those ideas that got everyone jazzed up about the genre's potential, long before we realised they'd mostly be protracted exercises in killing ten rats. So it's nice to hear Star Trek Online is getting player-built starbases, even if the game is about killing ten tribbles.

Yes, buildable space stations will arrive in the 'Season 6' update, lead artist Jeremy Mattson explained in a blog post. Stations will come in five stages as you build them up, starting with the basic core and building towards a fancy affair bristling with modules and arrays and ships pootling around.

The Season 6 update is vaguely slated for a June launch, with an expanded mission editor, updates for the fleet system, reworked PvP, and other goodies. Star Trek Online, in case you missed the news, went free-to-play in January. You can sign up and play now.

While being forthright with his community about the woeful state of Star Trek Online's player-vs-player combat, a developer at Cryptic Studios also admitted to something of a self-fulfilling prophecy: PvP in the game is so bad, no one's participating in it. Participation is so low, the studio has seriously considered removing PvP altogether.

"Something has to be done, PVP cannot stay the way that it is now. We either have to try to save it, or take it out of the game completely," writes Dan Griffis in the game's official forums, adding that right now, he is the only developer currently working on PvP.

But Griffis is going to give this his best shot, warning the community that, "there are big changes coming to PVP, some I think you are going to like, others not so much because no one likes change.

"Some are not going to make a whole lot of sense at the time because you won't be seeing the whole long term plan I have in store for PVP over the course of the next year or so," he adds. And specific complaints in the near-term may go unaddressed because they'll be made moot by a long-term change that's planned. For example, Klingons having access to gear that Federation players don't. "This isn't going to be a problem in the new system since their will not be any [Federation] vs [Klingon] PVP. All PVP in the new system will be cross faction queues."

Nearly every MMO faces criticism of its PvP, making this one of the more thankless jobs in an industry full of them. At least the guy's being straightforward with his community.